1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for receiving and transmitting ATM cell streams over a bus.
2. Background of the Invention
The increasing demand for ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) equipment having higher transfer rate, improved reliability and lower hardware complexity is prompting research in new ATM control technologies. ATM is a network technology based on transferring data in cells or packets of a fixed size. The cell used with ATM is relatively small compared to units used with other technologies. The small, constant cell size allows ATM equipment to transmit video, audio, and computer data over the same network, and assures that no single type of data occupies the line. ATM creates a fixed channel between two points whenever data transfer starts. This feature makes ATM less adaptable to sudden surges in network traffic. State of the art buffer management in ATM networks requires empty/full flag examination before a read or write operation to the buffer may be executed. Especially for transfers over a PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) bus, polling of these flags for every read or write operation to the buffer leads to increased control traffic over the PCI bus. Consequently, the control overhead for transferring ATM cells over a PCI bus into a buffer is high, which leads to performance disadvantages.